WORCESTER – With the testimony of his brother and niece on Wednesday, the prosecution continued attempts to prove that Nicolas Dutan Guaman was drunk when he caused the crash that killed Milford resident Matthew Denice - while the defense disputed their recollections.

Guaman, 37, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, is on trial in Worcester Superior Court on a second-degree murder charge for the Aug. 20, 2011 crash when police say he struck 23-year-old Denice, who was on a motorcycle, and dragged him for a quarter of a mile to his death.

Pablo Dutan Guaman, who himself had faced a charge in Milford District Court for allowing his brother to drive the pickup truck used in the crash, took the stand Wednesday. He testified to his brother's state that day, the Ecuadorian culture and on his brother's understanding of English.

“He was drunk,” said Pablo, who had been drinking with his brother on the afternoon before the crash. “He was weaving from side to side. He couldn't walk.”

Defense attorney Peter Ettenberg questioned Pablo on both the amount he'd had to drink that day - which he admitted was 12 beers from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. when his brother arrived at his home - and the fact that the charges against him were dropped by the state for his testimony in this trial.

Guaman's 12-year-old niece, who called the police to report him for driving drunk prior to the crash, also took the stand. She testified that her uncle was drunk prior to driving away in his truck with his 6-year-old son in the back seat.

“I told him not to go in the truck because his dad was drunk,” Vivian Choro Caguana recalled telling her young cousin. “He was tilting. He smelled like beer.”

Ettenberg questioned the girl on how much she was really paying attention to how much her father and uncle were drinking.

"You really don't know how much Nicolas had to drink," Ettenberg said.

Both sides also tried to use the testimony of the witnesses, which included Guaman's niece and brother, to get a sense of Guaman's cultural and language background.

Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Travers questioned Guaman on whether stop signs and police cars look the same in Ecuador as they do in the United States.

"I don't know if he understands the word stop," said Pablo following questioning from Travers.

Ettenberg asked Pablo whether police, or people posing as police, were known to pull people over and beat them in Ecuador. Pablo answered that he didn't know.

State Medical Examiner William Zane also took the stand. He described Denice's extensive injuries to the court, which included nearly all of his ribs being broken on the left side of his body, large scrapes horizontally across his torso, an abrasion on his left hip that exposed some of his bowel and other abrasions all over his body.

Page 2 of 2 - Ultimately, Zane testified that Denice's cause of death was due to multiple fractures, lacerations of major organs and asphyxia from “pressure on his chest or stomach for a significant amount of time.”

Zane, answering a question from the prosecutor, said it is unlikely that Denice lost consciousness at any point.

The prosecution is expected to finish calling their witnesses on Thursday. The defense will then present its case.

For live updates from the courtroom throughout this trial, follow Lindsay Corcoran on Twitter @LacorcMDN.